


Ed Westwick is Not a Repairman

by smithereen



Category: Gossip Girl RPF
Genre: Drunkenness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-10
Updated: 2012-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-29 07:37:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/317381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithereen/pseuds/smithereen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes life is only as hard as you make it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ed Westwick is Not a Repairman

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to antumbral for the beta.

Ed likes tar stains on the insides of fingers and slightly crooked teeth. And ties that are untied and jackets that are rumpled. Ed likes scars, breaking the smoothness of skin like an exclamation. And chipped mugs and jeans with bleach stains on them. Ed likes his songs a little bit off-key, his instruments a little out of tune.

Ed likes things flawed. A little bit broken. Imperfect.

The first time he sees Chace, he hates him on principle. His teeth are too straight, too white. His hair has the kind of casual perfection that must take hours of careful manipulation in front of the mirror. His clothes aren't even wrinkled, hanging off his shoulders in graceful lines like he just came from his job as a mannequin at The Gap. His eyes are perfectly blue. His lips are perfectly full. His shoulders are perfectly broad. There's nothing flawed about him.

And because Ed is not the type to whisper catty things behind other people's backs when their faces are right there, the first thing he says to him is, "Amazingly lifelike. Where's the string I pull to make you talk?"

Chace doesn't get offended, he just smiles an even, bright, pretty smile and says, "You don't know the half of it, dude. I've got molded plastic BVDs where my dick should be."

Ed quickly realizes he may have miscalculated.

*

In the backseat of Danny's car on the way to see this band he's heard good buzz about, Ed pulls out a joint. It's kind of a test, the pass or fail kind, to see if Mr. All American Boy is as goody-two shoes as he looks. When he offers the neatly rolled joint to Chace, the golden boy doesn't hesitate. He holds the smoke like a pro. Definitely done this before. He hands it back, smoke curling lazily from his mouth; and Ed smiles.

He passes.

*

Ed drinks a lot. Not like a rehab lot. Or a _show up on set drunk_ lot. More like a university student lot. Or a _guy who's just famous enough to get most of his drinks for free_ lot. Or a little more than that. Anyway, he's smashed tonight is the basic point. He fumbles clumsily with his lighter, wondering why the fuck there's no fire coming out of it. Chace nicks it from between Ed's fingers and flicks it with his thumb. Ah, there's the fire. Chace lights the cigarette that dangles off Ed's lower lip and hands the lighter back.

"Want one?" Ed asks, groping around for the pack. His pocket seems kind of smaller than he remembers it being. Or sewn shut or something. Chace shrugs an okay, reaching into Ed's pocket and retrieving the pack himself, his fingers brushing quick against Ed's chest through his jacket and then gone. He plucks the lighter out of Ed's fingers again. There's the quick flicker of flame, and another brush of those fingers as he tucks the cigarettes back inside Ed's pocket. He keeps the lighter though, the flame appearing, disappearing in his hand.

Pulling the cigarette from his lips after a shallow drag, he looks at Ed for a long moment. So long, Ed's sure he's going to say something. But he just tilts his head back, letting a stream of smoke up into the air above them before tucking a casual arm over Ed's shoulder. The flat of his hand tugs Ed backwards a little bit, steadying him on the stairs. Ed realizes he'd been swaying once he notices it stopping. He leans a little against Chace's hand, enjoying the way having that hand pressed tight against him makes his balance so fucking fantastic right now.

"I don't really smoke," Chace finally says just to say something. "I'm like..." The streetlights gild his skin a deep gold. "...a social smoker."

"Susceptible to peer pressure." Ed takes a puff off his cigarette. "Open to corruption. I like it."

"Not that susceptible." Chace drags Ed a little bit by the collar as a taxi starts down the mostly deserted street toward them. Ed stumbles on the last step, but Chace's hands are there, holding him up, keeping him from face planting on the pavement. Ed likes Chace's hands. They're very useful, he decides. Chace raises his arm, flicking his half smoked cigarette into the road. The cab pulls up. He plucks the cigarette from Ed's lips and crushes it out on the pavement before guiding Ed into the backseat. His hand covers the top of Ed's head for a moment as he passes through the door.

"I wasn't done with that cigarette," Ed complains.

"I'll get you a new one."

Appeased, Ed closes his eyes because the dark light shadow shapes of the buildings streaming past them all lit up by street lights is making him dizzy. He's migrating south, his body sagging somewhere in the middle until the side of his head touches down on Chace's shoulder. Chace smells good. Like expensive cologne and cigarette smoke and beer. Ed likes Chace's shoulder. It's just the right height, he decides.

Getting out of the car, Chace's hand on the tail of his jacket keeps Ed from walking into the path of an oncoming taxi. Ed listens to the sound of car horn filling the air. He sits down on the curb for a second because his legs decide he should. Chace sits down next to him. He reaches into Ed's pockets again with easy proprietary familiarity like they're really his pockets, and Ed is just borrowing them for a second. He quickly lights a cigarette, sucking a deep drag from it before handing it over to Ed. Ed takes it absently, distracted by the way the smoke wraps slow and loving around the long line of Chace's neck before drifting away. He looks down at the curb where Chace's feet are sticking out of the bottom of his jeans.

"Your socks don't match, man." He waves vaguely with his cigarette.

"You're wasted," Chace laughs.

"I know," Ed enunciates clearly and with great dignity. "But your socks still don't fucking match."

"Of course they do." Chace looks down at them, squinting in the pool of cool blue light coming from the front of the building.

Ed touches the one on the left. "They're both black," he says. "But they're not a pair, yeah?"

Chace looks closer, pulling up his jeans a little. One sock is clearly longer than the other. "Okay," he agrees. "My socks don't match."

Ed grins at him. "Not perfect," he says. He likes Chace's socks. They are his favorite socks in the whole world, he decides.

"No one ever said I was."

Chace unlocks the outside door to Ed's building for him when he can't figure out why the key won't fit in the stupid hole thing. Chace calls the lift while Ed leans against the mirrored wall in the lobby, turning his head from side to side and wondering how long his hair has been making those weird shapes in the back. He sinks down to the ground abruptly when he realizes he's about to fall over. Chace darts a glance between the opening lift doors, and Ed on the floor. He lets the lift close and comes over to haul Ed to his feet. Ed enjoys being reintroduced to Chace's useful hands, and his quite exemplary shoulder. He leans heavily against Chace while they wait for the lift doors to ding back open.

"Which floor?" Chace asks.

Ed scrunches his eyes closed and thinks. "Six," he says. "Yeah." He slouches into the lift and watches as Chace reaches inside to press the six. He thinks about asking Chace up because he really, really likes his hands and his shoulder. And his lips and his arms and his legs and eyelashes. But even if Chace does smoke and drink and wear mismatched socks, he's still too Captain America to think about crossing any lines with. Plus, Ed has a feeling he's about to spend the next few minutes or possibly longer being violently sick. Which is an activity best engaged in alone.

"See you," Chace says as the doors close between them.

Ed likes Chace, he decides.

*

Ed is sloppily making out with some random girl at the bar. Her tongue must be disproportionately large is all he can figure. Either that or she is literally trying to eat his chin. The entire bottom half of his face feels wet, and the vague charge he gets off the unsightliness of being covered in someone else's spit in public is the only thing keeping his boredom from overwhelming him. So. Bored. He peers past the plane of her cheek to the dark corner where his friends are sitting, and ponders whether a bad snog is better than no snog at all. He sees Chace throw back his head to catch the last of his beer, sees him laugh around the lip of the bottle. He wonders what he's laughing about. Wonders enough that he shoves away from the girl with a sigh. He wipes his chin with the back of his sleeve and gives her a fake phone number. Done and done.

Ed slides into the booth beside Chace, who immediately drapes an arm over Ed's shoulder and tugs him in tight to say something completely unintelligible about barnacles. Chace is a great drunk. He's all bright eyed and laughing and agreeable. His cheeks get flushed, and the carefully moussed perfection of his hair gets mussed, and a lot of times he forgets his jacket or his cell phone or that one time he lost a shoe. The best part is the more drunk he gets, the more he gets really deliberate with the careful, ponderous depth of the truly plastered. Never mind the shoes falling by the wayside, because he's busy being profound. He makes pronouncements about obstacle stroke values (whatever those are) and does in depth analysis of Top Gun that goes on for hours. Like did you realize that Goose is an allegory for American imperialism or something? Or that Val Kilmer is the greatest actor of our time? Because Chace will tell you about that for as long as you let him keep talking.

"Be back," Ed says, heading for the bathroom. He leans against the empty paper towel dispenser and lights up a cigarette, watching the smoke curl around his knuckles in shifting patterns. Chace pushes into the bathroom, his steps a little bit unsteady, his finger trailing against the wall like he needs that point of contact to remind himself where it is.

"Did you see the sign?" Chace nods at the large No Smoking sign in the corner that threatens to prosecute all violators to the fullest extent of the law. Which frankly, Ed doesn't think would be very far. It's just a cigarette for fuck's sake.

"Of course I saw the sign," Ed says. "I'm simply choosing to ignore it." He takes a long drag just to punctuate his point, enjoying the tightness of his lungs for a second before letting it go.

Chace boosts himself up on the edge of the sink, watching as a lungful of smoke streams out through Ed's nose. The cloudy haze deepens around Ed's head while he checks his eyebrows in the mirror to make sure they're not doing anything overtly unruly.

Chace turns to look at himself too, absently taking a swipe at his own hair. He leans over really slowly like he's not entirely sure where his own center of gravity is. His knee inches up onto the sink; his body tipping until his forehead is almost touching the mirror. Ed watches in bemusement as the pink tip of his tongue extends from between his lips, stretching until just the very end touches the mirror.

"What the fuck?" Ed says, grabbing him by the elbow and dragging him backwards. Chace slides off the sink, and Ed staggers around trying not to burn either of them with the end of his cigarette while simultaneously keeping them from toppling over onto the _God knows you don't want to touch it with anything but your feet_ bathroom floor. "Do you have any idea what you could catch? What the hell are you doing, twat?"

Chace just smiles a bright, empty smile. "Felt like it." He regains his footing, and Ed turns him around so he can lean his back against the wall because clearly the kid is drunker than Ed realized. "Wanted to know what it tasted like."

"So?" Ed says with an impatient shrug of his shoulders. "What did it taste like then?"

"Winter," Chase says after a moment of thought, pronouncing the word with a kind of proud gravitas like he's bestowing the secrets of the universe. "Wanna see?"

And then Chace is kissing him, those perfect lips against his mouth wet and hungry. It comes as something of a shock, but never let it be said Ed can't think on his feet. Because if someone is going to kiss him he can bloody well figure out that the correct response is to kiss them back. It's not exactly a perfect kiss by academic standards, being filled with sloppy, insistent tongue like Chace really is going to feed him mirror taste. And hell, maybe he had. Maybe the shiver that trembles its way to the base of Ed's spine is mirror taste. Or maybe they've both just caught hepatitis.

Ah well, it's too late now. So Ed sucks at Chace's tongue, clutching at his messy drunk hair to angle his lips so Ed can reach more, more.

*

Drunken making out with your purportedly straight friend in a public bathroom, or a room of any sort, is dangerous ground to tread. Of course it's fun at the time, but then you have to deal with all the heterosexual posturing about how totally hot for the ladies you both are. Which isn't entirely rubbish. Ed does love the ladies. But more than the ladies or the gents, what Ed loves is sex. Any kind of sex. He's not picky about the mechanics as long as he gets to fuck. But he finds that not everyone shares his all sex is good sex worldview, and this leads to being pounded with macho force on the back while freaked out guys pretend it was all just the alcohol, man and talk about how totally awesome tits are. It's ridiculous, but this is the way the world works.

Except when Chace comes over the next morning with doughnuts on his way to the gym (where Ed will not be joining him thank you very much because he thinks recreational exercise is crap) he doesn't immediately start in with the stories about Old Susie MagicCrotch who he's repeatedly fucked inside out. And he doesn't keep reminding them both about how drunk he was last night. And he generally acts like a completely normal, not idiotic person.

Ed is so thrown, he's actually the one that brings it up which is entirely opposed to every instinct and principle he has. "About last night?" he says.

"Yeah," Chace smiles easily. "Sorry if I weirded you out."

"Weirded _me_ out?" Ed continues to be thrown.

"It was just a thing I wanted to do." Chace chuckles, and his shoulders hitch up into a little shrug. It's maddeningly adorable. "Impulse control."

" _You_ wanted to?" Ed parrots. Chace is starting to look at him oddly since all he's contributing to this conversation is an echo. He clears his throat, feeling it sink in that this doesn't have to be awkward. That it's only going to be as awkward as he makes it. He offers Chace a cigarette, which Chace turns down. "I enjoyed it," he says. Because apparently, against all odds and every law of human behavior, they're both going to be honest and sane about the whole thing.

"Me too." There's this glint in Chace's eye, this dirty little glint as he says, "Next time, maybe we should try it sober."

Ed pauses halfway to lighting his cigarette. This is not at all how he thought this conversation was going to go. But fuck, he knows a good offer when he hears one. "Okay." He motions Chace closer with his unlit cigarette. He's not sure Chace will actually come when he calls. After all there's a difference between flirting and follow through. But Christ, has he misjudged this kid from minute one because Chace shrugs off his gym bag and steps toward him without a second of hesitation.

And then it does get a little bit awkward because this time they both know what's about to happen, and they have to do that head-tilty dance where they try to telepathically decide who's going to lean first and coordinate how not to smash their noses together or whatever. Ed watches this part carefully through slitted eyes, fascinated by the deformed close up view of thick eyelashes and parted lips. He savors the hesitation for a second before reaching over to curl his fingers around the nape of Chace's neck and guide those lips down to his own. He doesn't close his eyes until he's sucking a little on Chace's bottom lip, carefully teasing his mouth open with the scrape of teeth and a push of tongue.

They take their time, building on the slick, slow slide of lips and tongues. Chace's hands slip underneath Ed's shirt, fingers kneading the small of his back. Ed's elbow braces against Chace's ribs, his hand sliding up to clutch at Chace's shoulder blade. He twists his fingers through Chace's hair, deliberately destroying the neatly controlled sweep of the soft strands.

Chace makes a little grunting noise in the back of his throat as the kiss turns less careful, as their lips move from a circling, lazy exploration to a harder, hungrier breathless push. Their bodies thrust closer together, grinding, needy. Chace's teeth are at his throat. Chace's hand reaches down between them. Ed shudders, eyelids fluttering, as Chace's hand slides inside his pants.

Surely this is not the way the world works.

*

"We should move in together," Chace says.

Ed removes his lips from Chace's cock with an audible pop. He looks up, his eyebrows quirking. "I know I'm the best blowjob you've ever had, but we don't have to get married. This isn't Texas."

Chace rolls those big, blue eyes. "The rent around here is expensive, dude. My mom has a-"

"Please," Ed says, his voice pained. "Don't talk about your mom when your cock is this close to my mouth."

Chace shrugs and agreeably stops talking. And it's so easy. Just the two of them, and Chace's cock in his mouth, and comfortable silence. Ed thinks maybe he likes comfortable silence. Ed thinks maybe he could learn to like comfortable.

*

Chace is the first roommate Ed's ever had that actually owns a vacuum. At first he's afraid this is going to be a very bad sign. They'll fight over dishes and whose turn it is to clean the toilet. Ed can tell you right now it's never going to be his turn. They'll end up with a masking tape line down the middle of the apartment and refuse to talk to each other without a go between.

But it turns out the only time the vacuum gets used is on the very rare occasion Chace's mom drops by to visit. Chace sends his laundry out because he's too lazy to do it himself. He orders food in because he can't cook a damn thing. And the first time the sink became a towering pile of dirty dishes, Chace ended up throwing it all out, even the china and the silverware, and replacing it with all new stuff.

"I'm on television," he said. "I don't have to do the fucking dishes."

Ed thinks maybe he's in love.

*

"Listen to this bit!" Ed is saying. Yelling. Whatever. It's important, so he's allowed to yell if he feels like it. Also, he is a little bit shit-faced and he has a habit of yelling when shit-faced. He cranks the volume higher, conducting with his hands over the keyboard solo. He closes his eyes as Jim Morrison's voice starts to growl and soar.

Chace turns the volume back down and tries to shove him toward the couch.

"Don't handle me." He is still yelling. "I'm not an unruly child." His voice gets even louder. "I'm the lizard king!"

Chace pours him more whiskey. "Keep drinking," he says. "I like the part where you pass out more than the part where you wake up all our neighbors at three o'clock in the morning.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Ed says. There's no one else in the apartment with them, but he's making a dramatic salvo here. "Ladies and gentlemen," he says again because he lost his place for a second. He jumps up on top of the sofa and motions to Chace with a wide sweep of his arm. "A cunt."

Chace snorts. Ed grabs the glass of whiskey off the table and takes a deep swallow, bouncing a little on the sofa cushions.

"If you fall and crack your head open, I'm not calling 911," Chase says. "I'm just going to enjoy the quiet."

Ed giggles. "You know my favorite thing about Jim Morrison?" he says.

"He was a drunk?" Chace asks sweetly.

"Well, it's not like I hold that against him." Ed motions expansively with the glass, sloshing a little of the whiskey onto his foot. "But no. He was a poet." He cocks his head thoughtfully, and finishes the rest of his drink. "I could be a poet." He tosses the empty glass to Chace, who catches it one-handed with the easy grace of a lifelong jock. Ed sinks down into a squat, balancing on the sofa's arm. He plays a drum solo on the side of the couch. "I write poems."

"Just like Jewel." The sarcasm is laid on thick.

Ed laughs, throwing one of the cushions at Chace's head. "You really are a cunt."

Chace bats the cushion away and shakes his head in what he thinks looks like annoyance, but Ed knows is really just fondness. He pushes Ed off the sofa's arm, and Ed lands floppily on the remaining cushions. Chace follows him onto the couch, crawling and sliding over him until he's covering Ed's whole body. He lies there boneless and heavy on top of Ed, like a paperweight, making it impossible for him to move. "You really are a drunk," he whispers right into Ed's ear, nuzzling a little.

"I can't move," Ed mutters, lifting his head until his forehead presses against Chace's. He wiggles his right foot around since it's the only part of him that's free.

"That's kind of the point," Chace says. Ed finds his hands shoved up above his head, pinned with the strength of a lifelong jock. This is all the stupid gym's fault. "Stay," Chace says as he pushes downward with his forehead until Ed's head is lying flat with the rest of him. "Good boy. Now, we just need to keep you from talking." Chace's tongue flicks out against Ed's neck, and he grinds down with his hips. Ed arches up into him, his mouth falling open in a soundless gasp. "Good boy," Chace breathes into Ed's mouth before he covers Ed's lips with his own.

*

Chace has a scar on his right hip, just above the jut of bone, where he fell off his bike when he was fourteen. Ed rubs that scar with his thumb, feeling the rough ridge of skin. He licks it, loving the taste of the imperfection rising faint white in the middle of that long, smooth stretch of golden skin.

"Hey," Chace says. "Can you focus some of that attention maybe four inches to your right?"

Ed laughs against Chace's skin, nuzzling his hip, rubbing his cheek against the hard ladder of Chace's ribs, baring his teeth and nipping, sucking the blood to the surface of the skin with his mouth and tongue and teeth. Chace writhes under him, his head flung back, breath coming in pants. Ed traces over the marks he makes with his fingers, feeling himself get hard, so hard before finally wrapping his hand, his mouth around Chace's cock.

Later, Chace looks at himself in the mirror, his own fingers ghosting over the marks on his collarbone, his hip. He shakes his head, bemused. "I have like four shirtless scenes tomorrow, you dick."

Ed just grins. "I know."

*

The first time the two of them show up on Perez Hilton, Ed laughs and laughs. Chace laughs too until he gets off the phone with his publicist. After that he's not laughing so much anymore.

"It's not even fucking true, man," Ed points out.

Chace gives him a look of deepest skepticism. "Where have you been?"

"I mean, yeah," he says. "There's some vague closeness to the truth there. But we never made out in your trailer. We happen to be professionals." They both slide into matching grins at that one. Ed nudges Chace with his shoulder. "Or something. So anything true in that so called report is completely accidental."

"Maybe so." Chace walks away to go pull one of his energy drinks out of the refrigerator. Ed feels like if you want to artificially enhance your energy level, have the fucking balls to do speed. "But what's the difference between accidentally screwed and screwed on purpose. It still ends with me being screwed." He tips the can in Ed's direction in a sardonic toast.

"I'm not going to make the obvious joke." Ed tilts his head in concession. "Because I can see you're upset."

"Thanks for that." Chace rolls his eyes. "The point is-"

"The point is they're just guessing and making up a load of crap," Ed says. "Why're you letting it get to you?"

"You make enough shit up, people start to believe it."

"Who cares?" Ed shrugs. "Unless they have pictures of you going down on a guy, it never happened. Do what Tom Cruise does. Sue them for libel."

"My publicist says that'll only make it look worse." Chace turns to look out the window above the sink at the building across the street, where nothing interesting is happening. He keeps looking. "He says to just cool it."

"Cool it?" Ed moves to stand behind him, turning him with a hand on his elbow. "Cool what? Cool how?"

"I don't know, man," Chace says. He follows it up with, "My birthday party..."

Ed just laughs. "You twat. You're uninviting me to your birthday party? What are you, a five year old?"

"It's just a fucking party," Chace says. "And my publicist thinks-"

"Your publicist thinks?" Ed says. "What do you think, you fucking-"

"I mean, it's not-" Chace interrupts. "I'm not moving out. Or you know-"

Ed blinks. Moving out? What the fuck? "Moving out?" He can't keep the wonderment from his voice. "How is that even an option on the table?"

"I said I'm not going to-" Chace starts impatiently. "I'm just saying maybe we don't spend as much time together out in public. Where the goddamn cameras are?"

Ed shakes his head. "You're going to let some ridiculous cunts with nothing better to do than make up lies about actors decide your entire life for you?"

"You're being completely unreasonable," Chace snaps. "I'm the one this is falling on. It's getting traction with me. Not you."

"So what if it is? It's tabloid bullshit, baby. I say next time we're on set we go fucking make out in your trailer just like they said. Fuck them, you know? Just fuck all of them."

Chace tosses his mostly full drink in the trash, jaw clenching. "This is my career we're talking about."

"That's such shit," Ed says. "You're not even an actor. You fell into this acting thing because you're so damn pretty your face had to be on a screen somewhere. What's this high-minded career crap?" That, Ed realizes as he spits these words into Chace's face, was the line. And he had just crossed it. Fuck.

"Jesus Christ," Chace says, well and truly pissed off now where before he was just frustrated. "If all you want to do with your life is get high and get drunk and stumble around with your shitty band making a fool of yourself that's your choice, dude. But I actually have goals, okay?"

Ed stares at him hard. The line is in the rearview getting smaller all the time, and right this second he doesn't even give a fuck because he's so goddamn furious. His band is not that shitty! "I would never want to stand in the way of your goals," he says, putting as much ice in his voice as he possibly can. "So maybe we should just solve this problem once and for all. Maybe I _should_ move out. "

"Maybe you should." If Ed was hoping Chace would back down, he doesn't, his arms crossed over his chest, smiling mouth not smiling anymore.

Chace slams the door on his way out, and it sounds weirdly final. Like it should have been shot in slo-mo with a full reverb echoing behind the crack of the slam. Ed flips the deadbolt behind him and thinks about showing up to Chace's birthday party just to be an asshole. He decides it's not worth the effort. Besides, he can just as easily get smashed right here in the comfort of his own home. While it's still his own home. He calls around to a few friends, half-heartedly looking for a place to crash. He circles a couple things in the classifieds and leaves it on the table for Chace to notice when he gets back. If he gets back. Thing is, the righteous anger doesn't last that long, and when it's gone all he has left is the fact that he didn't really mean to fuck this up so royally.

Just because he likes things a little damaged doesn't mean he knows how to fix them when they break.

*

Chace is gone all weekend. When he comes back, Ed's playing Halo by himself. He sucks at Halo, just like he sucks at basically all video games except Lego Star Wars for some reason, but it's kind of cathartic to shoot a lot of fake people in the face. Chace hesitates at the door, not saying anything, before finally stepping inside. He moves around in the kitchen, picking stuff up, putting it back down.

Chace doesn't ask him how the apartment hunt is going. Doesn't suggest the name of a good realtor. He flops down next to Ed on the couch, and takes the controller out of his hand. Ed opens his mouth in token protest, but Chace just smiles that too pretty smile, the kind of smile that forces Ed to smile back whether he wants to or not. "Guitar Hero?" Chace says.

He lets Ed win.

Chace is some kind of idiot savant when it comes to Guitar Hero. Ed finds it a little bit galling, honestly, that Chace is so much better at it than he is since he's the one with the real life band that plays real life instruments. But they say the game is harder for people who actually play guitar, so probably the fact that Chace beats him every time is just proof that he's a real musician. Anyway, he never wins unless Chace lets him. And Chace never lets him unless he's apologizing for something.

For the entire week after his birthday party he lets Ed win.

And when they go back to work, the first thing Chace does is grab Ed by the shirt and jerk him bodily into his trailer, meeting his lips with rough, open-mouthed kisses. "Fuck them," he grumbles, all scraping stubble and roaming hands. Ed laughs into his mouth and kicks the door shut behind them.

At least one of them knows how to put things back together.


End file.
